. >> narrator: no one in the obama administration would talk to frontline about top secret america. but the president had reauthorized almost all of the dark side operations. greystone-- the hunt for bin laden and al-qaeda-- continued. >> authorities were continued that we were originally granted by president bush beginning shortly after 9/11. those were all picked up, reviewed and endorsed by the obama administration. >> narrator: at home, the president decided to expand the growth of top secret america. >> they've done nothing to roll it back. they've done very little to look inside of it, to say what is it that works, what doesn't work, what do we really need, and in this time of economic hardship, what don't we need? >> narrator: the president understood the political realities. >> there's going to be a terrorist strike some day, and when there is, if you've reduced the terrorism budget, the other party, whoever the other party is at the time, is going to say that you were responsible for the terrorist strike because you cut back the budget. and so it's a very, very risky thing